Springsteen
by Katertots
Summary: High School/College AU: Various one-shots about best friends Darcy Lewis and Steve Rogers and how their relationship changes over the years. Appearances by other Avengers characters.
1. Leap of Faith

Steve walks across the parking lot with Bucky and Clint, all three laughing hysterically at Clint's dead-on impersonation of Coach Fury from football practice that afternoon. He grins when he sees Darcy sitting on the bed of his truck, legs folded under her while she plucks the strings of her guitar and waits for him to drive her home.

Bucky blows out a wolf whistle and calls out, "Lookin' good, Dubs!" Darcy flicks up her middle finger and continues plucking out whatever tune she's working on.

"C'mon, Buck, don't call her that," Steve reproaches.

"She knows it's a compliment. Don't ya, D?"

"Yes, 'tis every girl's dream to have a nickname based on the size of her rack," she replies dryly. "Would you prefer to be called pencil or matchstick, Barnes?" Darcy grins wickedly when Bucky frowns and Steve and Clint burst out laughing.

"I do not have a small penis," he crows.

Darcy looks down at him over the top of her sunglasses. "Yeah, well, stop pissing off Natasha and maybe she'd stop spreading that rumor around school."

"Goddammit, Romanoff," Bucky grumbles and digs out his cell phone. "See you guys later."

"I gotta go, too. My ma's makin' meatloaf tonight and m'fuckin' hungry from running all those extra laps Fury gave me at practice." Clint and Steve bump fists and he waves his fingers at Darcy before getting into his jeep.

"Whatcha workin' on?" Steve asks as he throws his gym bag into the bed of the truck and hops up to sit beside her.

Darcy shrugs and tightens the strings on her guitar. "Nothing really—just playing around with the chorus to the song we wrote last week." She starts picking out notes and he grins because she's made it sound even better than before. It's just what she does and he loves that about her. "So, the rumor mill was interesting today," she says when she stops playing.

Steve leans back on his hands and turns his head to look at her. "Yeah? And what idle teenage gossip was the rumor mill turning out?"

"Well," she sings as she starts playing some dramatic melody on her guitar, "today's topic was about a certain blonde cheerleader asking the school quarterback to homecoming and QB1 turning her down."

Steve laughs. "Oh. That."

"Oh. That," she mocks in a ridiculous tone, turning towards him. Darcy pushes her sunglasses up on her head and arches an eyebrow. "True or false, QB1?"

"True," Steve smirks.

Darcy's peal of laughter echoes through the nearly empty parking lot. "God, I'd have paid _big_ money to see the look on Sharon's face when you said no."

Steve sits up and carelessly lifts a shoulder. "I don't wanna go with her."

"Why not? Aren't the captain of the football team and head cheerleader supposed to go to homecoming together?"

He frowns at her, then, for not knowing better. "You know I don't play by those bullshit high school rules, Darce," he snaps.

She sighs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I know, I'm sorry."

"Besides, there's someone else I'd rather go with."

"Oh," she replies, pressing her lips into a tight line. She turns her attention back to her guitar. "Who might that be?"

Steve swallows the lump in this throat. He's never been nervous around her until now. "My best friend."

Darcy straightens a little and casts him a sideways glance. "Oh. Bucky?" she asks, giggling when he nudges her thigh with his hand.

"No, wiseass. I want to go with you." A crooked grin twitches across his lips when she turns and just blinks at him.

"You wanna go to a high school dance with _me_?"

"Yes. And just about everywhere else, Darcy."

"What do—"

Steve cuts her off with a kiss and she squeaks in surprise. He'd laugh about it, but that would require taking his lips off hers, which, no, he's not doing yet. So he cups her face in his hands and kisses her some more. He teases the seam of her lips with his tongue and Darcy opens her mouth to him and tentatively brushes her tongue along his. Maybe it should be weird, he thinks, kissing your best friend in the middle of the high school parking lot, but it isn't. It feels exactly right and it's something he's wanted to do for a long time now.

"Oh," Darcy manages when they pull apart. Her eyes are dark and round and full of surprise.

"You said that already," Steve breathes out, his hands slowly falling away from her face.

She smiles and reaches for his hand. "I'm gonna write a song about this."

Steve snorts out a laugh because of course she'd say that right now. "That all you have to say about me kissin' you?"

Darcy smirks at him and her eyes dance playfully. "Why don't you do it again and I'll come up with some better words."

He grins and leans in closer. Darcy meets him halfway.


	2. Growin' Up

Darcy knocks on the backdoor before letting herself into the Rogers' home, the way she has nearly every day since she was seven. Walking into this house these days feels a bit strange because she and Steve are together now and their parents still don't know that despite the fact that they went to the homecoming dance together last month. They've been so entangled in each other's lives since she moved into the house across the street ten years ago that her dad and Steve's parents just assumed they were going as friends and neither she nor Steve had bothered correcting them.

"Hello," she calls out and walks into the kitchen. Steve's mom is chopping vegetables at the counter and singing along to the radio.

"Hey," Sarah greets warmly. "How's my girl?"

She smiles at the woman who is the closest thing she has to a mother and snags a piece of bell pepper off the cutting board. "I'm good. Didn't want to punch anyone today at school, so you can't ask for much more than that."

Sarah laughs and dices up a carrot. "Ah, high school. I can't say that I miss those days. Grades?"

"Straight A's this term."

Sarah pats her cheek. "I'm so proud of you."

Darcy blushes and glances at her feet. "Thanks, Mrs. Rogers."

"Are you staying for dinner? I'm making chicken parm, your favorite."

"I am now," Darcy grins. "Thanks."

"Well, go on upstairs," Sarah flicks her hand. "Steve's in his room and I'm sure you two have songs to write. I'll get y'all for dinner."

"Okay," she says and hurries out of the kitchen with her guitar case in hand.

Steve's on his bed playing a John Mayer song on his guitar and her heart flutters at the picture he makes. She just watches from the door, listening to him play so wonderfully for a moment before knocking lightly against the frame. His head turns and his face splits into a grin when he sees her. That look makes the fluttering increase exponentially and spread down into her belly. "Hey," he says.

"Hey," Darcy smiles, walking into his room and pushing the door closed behind her. "Your mom sent me up. She said she was sure we had songs to write."

"C'mere," he says mischievously, setting his guitar down and holding out his hand. "Got a song to tell you about."

They joked one afternoon while they made out like bandits after school until his parents got home that their code for making out should be 'writing songs' and it sort of stuck. She smirks at him, shrugging out of her jacket and kicking off her shoes. He's so handsome that she can hardly stand it. "Oh yeah?"

He nods. "Thought about it all day." Steve grins as she walks over and climbs onto her knees on the bed beside him.

"Me, too," Darcy replies and drops a kiss to his lips. His arms wrap around her waist and he flips her quickly onto her back. "Smooth," she giggles, setting her hands on his shoulders. Steve settles his body on top of hers, one thigh nestled between her legs, and the laugh in her throat dies out in a hurry.

"Okay?" he asks softly, earnest eyes looking down at her.

"More than," she assures him, shifting her hips a fraction to feel him press more fully against her center. "You should kiss me now."

They share a quiet, knowing grin and then his lips are on hers, the weight of his body pressing her down into the mattress; she stops thinking and just feels.

… … …

Things are getting a little carried away especially considering his mom is right downstairs, but he doesn't want to stop because he's got a hand on Darcy's boob _under _her shirt for the first time and the little sound she makes when he swipes his thumb across her nipple is the absolute best thing he's ever heard in his life. She's got one hand on his face, fingers teasing over his jaw while she nips at his bottom lip and the other is warm against the skin on the small of his back where she's tugged up the shirt he's wearing. He's painfully hard in his jeans and pressed against her hip. Every now and then Darcy arches and shifts beneath him and the friction against his dick makes him hot and dizzy. It's time to cool things off, he knows, but he just wants a few moments more before they do.

"Steve, Darce, time for din—oh, my god!" his mom sputters in the door of his room.

He springs back away from Darcy and he feels the bed dip when she hurriedly scrambles to sit up beside him. His mom is gawping at them eyes wide and mouth open in utter shock. There's no way to spin this by saying something dumb like 'this isn't what it looks like' because his mom isn't stupid and he has more respect for her than to pull something like that, and it _is _exactly how it looked.

"I…" his mom starts and then snaps her mouth shut. It's freaking him out the way her eyes just keep darting back and forth between him and Darcy while she says absolutely nothing.

"Mom, we're dating now," Steve offers and he cringes inwardly at how stupid that sounds.

"Yes, Steven Grant, I can see that," she says coolly, nodding her head. "How long has this been going on?"

Steve glances over at Darcy. Her hair is a wreck and her lips are pink and swollen from making out and he can't help but think how pretty she looks. She narrows her eyes at him as though she knows what he's thinking and is calling him a moron. He clears his throat and turns his eyes back to his mom. "About a month."

"A _month_?" she asks and Steve blanches at her tone. "Are you two having sex?"

"What? Mom!" he chokes out.

"No," Darcy insists. She glares at him and then turns her apologetic face to his mom. "We're not, I swear."

"I see," she replies, nodding again.

Darcy stands up and reaches for her shoes. "I should get going."

"Oh, no," his mom says sharply. "We're all going to sit down at the dinner table and have a very long conversation about this."

"Yes, ma'am," Darcy mumbles and sits back down on the edge of the bed.

His mom shoots him a pointed look and arches a questioning eyebrow. "Okay, Mom," he says quickly. God, this is so embarrassing!

"You two straighten yourselves up and come downstairs. We'll wait until your father gets home, Steven. Darcy, I'm going to call your dad." She shoots them both a stern look before walking away.

Darcy snorts and clamps her hand over her mouth to contain the giggles. "It's not funny," he grumbles, pushing to his feet.

"I know," she laughs, covering her mouth again.

"Now's not the time for your nervous laughter, Darcy!"

She giggles behind her hand and squeezes her eyes tightly shut. "I'm sorry," she manages, inhaling deeply and blowing out a slow breath. "Sorry." He holds out his hands and pulls her to her feet. She grins up at him, a gleam in her eye. "I know we're in serious shit, but," she starts, drawing a corner of her bottom lip between her teeth, "this afternoon was pretty great."

A grin stretches across his face and he nods. "Yeah. Really great." He dips his head and presses a soft kiss to her lips.

"Steve! Darcy! Downstairs now!" his mother yells up the stairs.

They sigh and Darcy reaches for his hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. "C'mon, Steve. Time to face the music."

Author's Note: If you're curious about who I picture as Sarah Rogers, look no further than Connie Britton, particularly her role as Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights. :)


End file.
